Individuals maintain up indicators earlier than Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump holds a marketing campaign rally Nov. 4, 2024 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
Like many People who voted for Donald Trump, Jason Rouse hopes the president’s return will imply decrease costs for gasoline, groceries and different necessities.
However Rouse is trying to the federal authorities for reduction from one explicit ache level: excessive well being care prices.
“The costs are simply ridiculous,” mentioned Rouse, 53, a retired Michigan firefighter and paramedic who has voted for Trump 3 times. “I would wish to see a decrease cap on what I’ve to pay out-of-pocket.”
Authorities regulation of well being care costs was heresy for many Republicans. GOP leaders fiercely opposed the 2010 Inexpensive Care Act, which included authorities limits on sufferers’ prices. Extra lately, the get together fought laws signed by former President Joe Biden to cap prescription drug costs.
However as Trump begins his second time period, lots of the voters who despatched him again to the White Home welcome extra strong authorities motion to rein in a well being care system many People understand as uncontrolled, polls present.
“That concept that authorities ought to simply hold its arms off, even when issues are powerful for individuals, has type of misplaced its sheen,” mentioned Andrew Seligsohn, president of Public Agenda, a nonprofit that has studied public attitudes about authorities and well being care.
“We’re wandering across the nation with a set of previous, outdated frameworks about what peculiar Democrats and peculiar Republicans like,” he mentioned.
Jason Rouse of Alpena, Michigan, Sarah Bognaski of Clayton, New York, and Charles Milliken of New Martinsville, West Virginia, all voted for President Donald Trump in November. They’d wish to see the brand new administration put limits on what well being care suppliers can cost sufferers.
Jason Rouse; Sarah Bognaski; Charles Milliken
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Jason Rouse; Sarah Bognaski; Charles Milliken
Republican voters strongly again federal limits on the costs charged by drug firms and hospitals, caps on sufferers’ medical payments, and restrictions on how well being care suppliers can pursue individuals over medical debt, current polling finds.
Even Medicaid, the state-federal insurance coverage program that Republican congressional leaders are eyeing to dramatically lower, is seen favorably by many GOP voters, like Ashley Williamson.
Williamson, 37, a mom of 5 in japanese Tennessee who voted for Trump, mentioned Medicaid supplied crucial help when her mother-in-law wanted nursing house care.
“We couldn’t deal with her,” Williamson mentioned. “It stepped in. It made positive she was taken care of.”
Williamson, whose family will get protection by way of her husband’s employer, mentioned she can be very involved by massive cuts in Medicaid funding that might jeopardize protection for needy People.
For years, Republican concepts about well being care mirrored a broad skepticism about authorities and fears that regulation would threaten sufferers’ entry to physicians or lifesaving medicines.
“The discussions 10 to fifteen years in the past had been throughout selection,” mentioned Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster who has labored for quite a few GOP politicians, together with former Maryland governor Larry Hogan. “Free market, not having the federal government restrict or take over your well being care.”
Matthews and fellow pollster Mike Perry lately convened and paid for a number of focus teams with Trump voters, together with Rouse and Williamson, which KFF Well being Information noticed.
Skepticism about authorities lingers amongst rank-and-file Republicans. And concepts comparable to shifting all People right into a single authorities well being plan, akin to “Medicare for All,” are nonetheless nonstarters for a lot of GOP voters.
However as tens of thousands and thousands of People are pushed into debt by medical payments they do not perceive or cannot afford, many are reassessing their inclination to look to free markets slightly than the federal government, mentioned Bob Ward, whose agency, Fabrizio Ward, polled for Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign.
“I believe most individuals have a look at this and say the market is damaged, and that is why they’re keen for somebody, anybody, to step in,” he mentioned. “The deck is stacked in opposition to of us.”
In a current nationwide survey, Fabrizio Ward and Hart Analysis, which for many years has polled for Democratic candidates, discovered that Trump voters had been extra prone to blame well being insurers, drug firms, and hospital techniques than the federal government for top well being care prices.
Sarah Bognaski, 31, an administrative assistant in upstate New York, is among the many many Trump voters who say they resent profiteering by the well being care trade.
“I do not suppose there may be any motive a number of the prices must be as excessive as they’re,” Bognaski mentioned. “I believe it is simply out of pure greed.”
Excessive well being care prices have had a direct affect on Bognaski, who was identified 4 years in the past with Kind 1 diabetes, a situation that makes her depending on insulin. She mentioned she’s able to have the federal government step in and cap what sufferers pay for prescribed drugs. “I would wish to see extra regulation,” she mentioned.
Charles Milliken, a retired auto mechanic in West Virginia, who mentioned he backed Trump as a result of the nation “wants a businessman, not a politician,” expects the brand new president to go even additional.
“I believe he will put a cap on what insurance coverage firms can cost, what medical doctors can cost, what hospitals can cost,” mentioned Milliken, 51, who lately had a coronary heart assault that left him with greater than $6,000 in medical debt.
Three-quarters of Trump voters again authorities limits on what hospitals can cost, Ward’s polling discovered.
And about half of Trump voters in a current KFF ballot mentioned the brand new administration ought to prioritize increasing the variety of medication whose worth is ready by way of negotiation between the federal Medicare program and drug firms, a program began below the Biden administration.
Perry, who’s convened dozens of focus teams with voters about well being care in recent times, mentioned the help for presidency worth caps is all of the extra exceptional since regulating medical costs is not on the high of most politicians’ agenda.
“It appears to be like a groundswell,” he mentioned. “They’ve come to this choice on their very own, slightly than any policymakers main them there, that one thing must be achieved.”
Different types of authorities regulation, comparable to limits on medical debt collections, are much more well-liked.
About 8 in 10 Republicans backed a $2,300 cap on how a lot sufferers may very well be required to pay yearly for medical debt, in keeping with a 2023 survey by Perry’s polling agency, PerryUndem. And 9 in 10 favored a cap on rates of interest charged on medical debt.
“These are what I might contemplate no-brainers, from a political perspective,” Ward mentioned.
However GOP political leaders in Washington have traditionally proven little curiosity in authorities limits on what sufferers pay for medical care. And as Trump and his allies in Congress start shaping their well being care agenda, many Republican leaders have expressed extra curiosity in slicing authorities than in increasing its protections.
“There may be oftentimes an enormous disconnect,” Ward mentioned, “between what occurs within the caucuses on Capitol Hill and what’s taking place at household tables throughout America.”
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is likely one of the core working applications at KFF.